Books: An Ode to Hippocrates

At an age when his contemporaries dreamed of becoming cowboys or
firemen, seven-year-old Lucas Marsh already knew his life work: he
would be a doctor. He was handicapped from the first. Mamma, a neurotic
and mystic who believed that only the spirit could heal, hated the very
idea of medicine and hysterically begged Luke to forget it. Daddy
Marsh, the crude, unscrupulous owner of a string of harness shops,
insisted that Luke shift his sights to business and the big money. Luke
obediently said yes, mother, yes, dad; but what his parents never...